If one rider can take the UCI Hour Record away from Belgian Victor Campenaerts, who covered 55.089 kilometres in 2019, it's Italian Filippo Ganna - the motor behind Italy's Team Pursuit gold medal in Tokyo and the time trial world champion for two years running.
Ganna revealed to La Gazzetta dello Sport in an interview during the Trento Festival of Sport that he is considering taking a run at the record after he performed 30-minute test earlier this year at an average speed of around 57.5kph.
Campenaerts broke the record set by Bradley Wiggins in 2015 (54.526km) at the high-altitude Aguascalientes Bicentenary Velodrome in Mexico. Other riders have attempted to break Campenaerts' mark, most recently Dan Bigham took the British record off Wiggins with 54.723km covered at the Grenchen velodrome.
Ganna admitted that the 30-minute test took a lot out of him. “I tried in Montichiari after a period of altitude after the Giro. The test only lasted thirty minutes and after that I was really broken. I now understand that you have to plan everything very well and it requires an incredible effort," Ganna said.
"We'll have to look into it in the future, I'll talk to the team about it later. That will be in January. Maybe I'll make an attack next summer. Let's hope that one day I can uncork a good bottle of rosé to celebrate my successful world Hour Record attempt.”
Ganna has discussed tackling the Hour Record before, first after setting the individual pursuit record in 2019 during the Minsk World Cup then again after lowering his mark at the 2020 UCI Track World Championships.
That record has since been broken by American Ashton Lambie at the Aguascalientes velodrome but Ganna's mark remains the best set at sea level.
The Italian team broke the team pursuit record twice at the Tokyo Olympic Games, lowering Denmark's record set in 2020 by more than two seconds at 3:42.032.
